Integration 2- Spence 1 Bryan Reaume Moreau First-Year Experience November 28, 2021 Integration 2 This first semester has come with many challenges and “curveballs”, what I have learned from this course is how to adjust. I heard the words “adjust” or “adjusting” countless times in my first few months here at Notre dame. What I didn’t realize then, was that this Moreau course has been a huge way of finding myself and how I can fit into this new lifestyle here at Notre Dame. Week by week I learned valuable lessons that helped me learn how to adjust and react to problems or hardships I may encounter in life. Every week and lesson tough me some of the most valuable lessons when learning to adjust to my new life here at Notre Dame. Expanding from the first half of the semester, I will show how the QQC assignments 9-12 have impacted my mind. In week nine’s QQC module, I found a term and description with a particular feeling that I am very familiar with. I have always thought of my failures to be that I was not working hard enough. This is not always the case, sometimes in order to grow, you have to fail. The hardest part for me is learning how to be comfortable with failure. In Cox’s video, she explains that Pluralistic ignorance is where we each doubt ourselves in our own heads, not thinking if anyone else is going through the same struggles. I have learned to overcome this feeling by talking to people that are in the same environment as me. For example, school is hard, and sometimes baseball is even harder, but when I talk to my teammates Spence 2 and realize that I am not alone in my stressful thoughts, I feel more comfortable with the path that I am on. I have learned that to continue growing, I need to continue talking and reaching out to my peers to feel more comfortable with what I am dealing with at the time. This will all lead me back to growing a stronger sense of the community here at Notre Dame. Week 10 beheld one of my favorite QQC’s of them all, I was very interested in the Kintsugi Workshop, with the goal of being able to repair themselves. This workshop has people make beautiful pieces of poetry, and proceed to smash them. To me, this can resemble how unexpected things can turn your seemingly perfect life upside down. This world can be very cold and unforgiving, some of the worst things may happen to the most undeserving people. The reality is, no matter what happens to you, it is never a means to an end. Life gives you all sorts of second chances and new beginnings if you try and live every day to the fullest. I think that our community here at Notre Dame is very forgiving, but comes with its challenges. For me, I am learning how to balance school and baseball. This is something I struggled with as I reflected on my midterm grades. I had multiple deficiencies in classes and I ended the falling short of my goals on the baseball field. It felt as if I was digging my own grave, continuously failing without being able to see the bottom. One thing I have gotten better at is reaching out for help, Notre Dame’s teachers, faculty, athletes, and students all want each other to succeed here. I hope to respond to the challenges of my community by reaching out and helping others that are in similar situations that I have been in. If everyone devotes just a little piece of their day to helping one person out, we will have a much stronger sense of community. Moving into week 11, we started to shift into the value of relationships and trusted bonds. I believe that to create a strong bond with each other, you need to use the golden rule! Yes, the Spence 3 videos we all watched as kids, the GOLDEN RULE. We all took the “Golden rule” as a moral code to treat others how we would wish to be treated, some took this moral with a grain of salt, but some implemented it into their interactions with others. I believe that everyone, no matter what race, gender, or ethnicity should be treated with the same amount of respect you give towards your closest friends and family. Especially here at Notre Dame, I have accepted that the community that we are in has become my new family. In the building bridges video, Don Wycliff talks about really getting to know each other in conversation. There is not a whole lot of effort that goes into having more conversations with people in my community. I feel that if everyone spent a little more time getting to know one another, we would strengthen our bonds with the community as a whole. My goal is to learn how to treat people with the most uplifting energy that I have, I have seen it make my day, and I want it to make others’ days too. It doesn’t take much to show energy and care towards others, regardless of skin color or beliefs. Growing in any aspect of our lives has been a consistent theme throughout the Moreau course this semester. And although this course and the readings that come assigned with it are supposed to help us grow, I have felt that I grow most through experiences, not from a book. Only through digging deep into my heart and morals, I will change. In our last QQC, we learned about hope. Hope, to me, is trusting in a certain process or faith. Personally, it is hard to figure out what “trusting the process” looks like in baseball. It looks no different, but with more confidence in what I am doing, I can execute to the best of my ability. Outside of baseball, I have never had the strongest sense of faith. My family was never actively practicing when I was young. Since I have been at Notre Dame, I have started to learn that having a stronger sense of Spence 4 faith can help me through my journey. In “Holy Cross and Christian Education”, it is easy to see that in the Christian faith, the goal is to spread hope. To me, this means that there is always something to believe in even in the seemingly darkest times. The author states, “We must be men with hope to bring. There is no failure the Lord’s love cannot reverse…”. Even in the darkest of times, there is nothing more powerful than the lord’s love. I am extremely grateful to have had a well-run moreau class with a good group of people, headed by a great professor. I am eager to continue to discover myself, with the help of others around me. Spence 5 Works Cited Cox, Elizabeth. “You Need to Have JavaScript Enabled in Order to Access This Site.” Messaging: Imposter Syndrome: HWW2021! Training, https://canvas.ou.edu/courses/248293/modules/items/3559114. “HOLY CROSS AND CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.” Campus Ministry at the University of Notre Dame. Marketing Communications: Web | University of Notre Dame. “Don Wycliff.” With Voices True, https://voicestrue.nd.edu/stories/don-wycliff/. Women Find Healing through Kintsugi Workshop - Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGJLJEqD8gg.